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Crushed materials with extensive granulometry – unbound granular materials (UGM) – are often used as unbound granular layers of road pavements, namely as granular sub-base and base. In spite of several studies having already been undertaken, the behaviour of these materials on pavement layers has not been sufficiently characterised, especially due to reasons connected to the heterogeneity of the rock masses from which they come. This has special importance for Portuguese pavement technology and has led to the development of two PhD theses in different schools (University of Coimbra and Technical University of Lisbon) using different approaches but both aiming at the characterisation of the aptitude of the same types of material (crushed limestone) being used as UGM. In addition, in the same terms, one of the theses has also characterised a crushed granite material. Basically, both theses included laboratory testing using cyclic triaxial tests and in situ mechanical characterisation to establish behaviour models for the crushed materials investigated. This paper describes the main results obtained from both theses and discusses the results on an integrated basis, pointing out the main indications that can be extracted from both in terms of the use of UGM on Portuguese pavement technology.

The Gorongosa National Park was created in 1960 and it has 4.067km2 that integrates the Serra da Gorongosa and the local communities that live nearby. This work aims the characterization of the traditional houses and ways of building observed in the natural park. The main objective is the identification and characterization of constructive systems and the organization of villages in the Gorongosa National Park. This characterization is intended to be constructive from the point of view of the materials, geometry and solutions applied on the construction. The present work has many phases, in this sense the following stages were defined: Developing the state of art based on the analysis of constructive characterization methods and bibliographic research on earth systems used in Mozambique and other countries with similar conditions and climates; Definition of the studying cases: identification of the villages that were objects of studies, definition of survey criteria and registration; Visiting the villages and surveying the solutions through photographic register, visual observation, measurements, interviews; Registering identification files to each solution, etc. The work presents the typologies of construction found, namely: constructions with walls made from earth commonly used in the country, being the most usual technology the earth covering over wooden structures with different geometries and pieces of different shapes and dimensions. The study has documented some of the most current solutions in National Park.